Stefani Pellinen-Chavez

How not to thin seeds, apparently.

My very first self started plant test, just before getting started on Outdoor Hedonist was to plant a little seed tray together with my toddler. She wanted either flowers or grass for her doll to play on. She got chia. The chia sprouted quickly and densely. We let it grow for a couple weeks, and…

How not to water a freshly seeded garden, apparently.

Well, see for yourself. It’s not that somewhere in my brain I didn’t know that rain, or in this case, an overspray from a sprinkler nozzle, could wash seeds away. I know I’ve read passages in books talking about keeping a freshly seeded bed uniformly moist, and watering with a hand mister so as not…

Testing pea planting methods: sprouted, direct sewn, innoculated

The trouble with reading gardening books for fun is that there will always be some new idea that I wish I had known about before. I learned from Golden Gate Gardening that sprouted peas don’t grow better than peas planted in the soil – although I’ve read elsewhere that you can get a head-start by…

Making compost fast.

Have you seen the Food Cycler Indoor Kitchen Composter appliance? I think it’s worth an ogle, if you haven’t checked it out already. See for yourself. For the low-low price of $500 bucks (or $600!) you too, can have “compost” in just three hours! My own compost pile is… not that fast. Not even if…

Compostable grow bags, like a comfort blanket for the transplant phobic.

In anticipation of starting my new tomato and pepper seeds, I started saving milk cartons to use as pots, and quickly amassed quite a collection (little kids will drink a ton of milk). I used my little seed trays with 1 inch cells to plant my onion, cosmos, basil, and oregano seeds, But tomatoes can…

Who’s been digging in my bed? Defending the vegetable garden.

We’ve lived in this house for a long time, so I have a lot of materials hanging around that can be used to make a defensible perimeter. Given that what I have around is hog-wire fencing and metal fence posts, my garden is going to look more like a prison than Pinterest, but a girl can dream right? Damn right I can!

Which fertilizer, how much, where to put it. Understanding NPK for hedonists.

I’ve literally studied and taken tests on NPK in the past five months, but how NPK works doesn’t like to stick in my head. So we’re doing this one together. Here’s what I know so far: NPK stands for the chemical symbols for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), which is also called potash….

What are ‘compostable’ grow bags and do they actually degrade in a compost pile?

Grow bags are little loose-weave fabric baggies for starting plant seeds in. Folks like them because you can pack a lot of them onto a seed tray, and plant roots will grow right through the fabric , so you don’t have to worry about damaging plants by transplanting them. I’m middling conscious about my use…

It’s true. I’m afraid of fertilizer.

I’m just going to come out and say this: I’m afraid of chemical fertilizer. It doesn’t have to make sense. It just is. There are so many uncertainties about the stuff. Like, if I measure it out and mix it like the label says, can I then just dump it all in one spot? What…

Making seed meal from excess winter wheat. Is it a great fertilizer?

I’m reading a few gardening books concurrently right now, and in one of them I came across a list of fertilizers that includes “seed meal.” It was either Golden Gate Gardening or my first edition of Square Foot Gardening. OMG. The All New Square Foot Gardening is good, but the first edition is like the…